Little Fires Everywhere (2020)

This miniseries adaptation of Celeste Ng's New York Times bestseller is good, not great, but certainly interesting in its deviations from the source material. First is the casting of Kerry Washington. In the novel, Mia is not racially ambiguous but by casting an African American actress, it reified layers of racial subtext. The racial undertones are extremely uncomfortable, intentionally so. Reese Witherspoon as the "well-meaning", oblivious white lady is very unlikable, kind of curious that she would cast herself in what is surely the villain role. For the first several episodes, Washington isn't very likable either. The way she plays Mia is very off-putting. If she was just a little more sociable, she would be more sympathetic. The actress that plays young Washington nails her mannerisms precisely. But the young Elena and Bill look nothing like Witherspoon and Joshua Jackson--he actually looks older than Jackson. The second half of the series is better than the first, in my opinion, after all the secrets have been revealed to us. I think that's because I didn't care much for the secrets.

Wild (2014)

This movie features a whole lot of hiking.   Hiking is a very slow sport.  To make matters worse, Reese Witherspoon is hiking in the middle of nowhere up the Pacific Crest Trail.  So for starters, this was not really my type of movie.  But I can appreciate what hiking means for Witherspoon's character Cheryl Strayed, whose memoir this movie is based on.  Hiking has a regenerative power.  She is giving herself new life and accomplishing a massive feat to prove that she can make it on her own.

The narrative is told with a lot of narration and time jumping, so to speak. I imagine the narrations giving us first-person insight into her thoughts are reflective of the story's origin in a book.  Strayed's hike is linear, but there are many flashbacks interspersed in the movie.  These are powerful memories, that don't only cause her to remember but take Strayed back emotionally.  She is emotive, expressing fear and frustration and moments of bliss.  Reese Witherspoon gives a gritty performance as the solo hiker. We see her anguish and her perpetual pain out in the desert.   Laura Dern, too, as Strayed's optimistic mother is good in the few scenes that she's in.